spinels – The Gemstone Project

TGP: Year Two

Posted on August 9, 2016August 1, 2016 by grayspinel

A lot has happened over the last year, and certainly in the last two!

On a more personal note, I have moved from just outside of the Mojave desert where water is scarce to a 1800s farmhouse in the middle of thousands of acres of the incredible rolling hills of the Palouse, and finally to a fixer upper in Pullman with an actual dedicated space for a studio with southern exposure.

Professionally I have created some incredible new designs, some of my favorite being the most challenging – a double haloed Paraiba Tourmaline, a haloed Burmese red spinel, a scalloped halo for an antique pear diamond, a violet spinel three stone ring, and a stunner of a 6 carat violet sapphire ring and so many more!

I have created some really amazing engagement rings – a marquise in the Papillon setting, and a three stone spinel ring, not to mention stones found for engagement rings. I am always so excited and feel so blessed to play a small part of someone’s engagement!

I have added to and built up the retail portion of my website, adding a boutique, and adding multiple designs to the Elle Collection. I have also made new contacts and been able to see some incredible gems!

As far as gemstones go, I got an untreated Colombian Emerald back from AGL – I always knew this stone was special, and now I know how special and rare it really is. I received a glowy red spinel cut by Jeff White, and while I considered keeping it for a while, I ended up letting it go. Very reluctantly! I have gotten a ton of gray spinels, and continue being on the lookout for more. I am always on the hunt for gray spinels, especially now that their prices have skyrocketed.

One thing that also happened this year is that AGTA and JA declared spinel to be a birthstone for August. If you’ve followed my blog, etsy, website or Instagram for any period of time, you know how much I love spinels. So while I think this is wonderful that spinel can finally get some recognition it deserves, it’s really terrible because that means that the prices of spinels are going to go crazy for a while, and probably will never come down again.

So many things are in the works for the next year, especially the next couple of months. I have a bunch of goals, including entering a design or two into competition, and working towards more earrings and necklace designs. At some point I would like to have a trunk show event at a local jewelry store because I think that would be a lot of fun!

Here is to my third year! I only hope that it is as wonderful as the past two years!

Custom Three Stone

Posted on January 25, 2016January 24, 2016 by grayspinel

One of the many reasons I love spinels so much is that they have so much personality. One minute they may look one color, the next minute, they could look another color. So of course when I had a client reach out and ask if I would set her violet-blue cushion spinel, I jumped at the chance.

Now the ring is currently in transit to the client, but she has already seen most of these pictures.

She wanted a three stone with diamond half moons, and we had a lot of discussion about the design elements of it, and where to go with inspiration.

She suggested that she wanted it to be very traditional from top down, and something unexpected from the side. Her thought was “A professional woman in a business suit, but with blue fingernails.”

The working title for the ring became the “mullet ring”, with business from the top, and party from the side. We went through a variety of diamonds for the surprise stones, and ended up using irradiated yellow diamonds.

I really wanted it to have a minimalist feel from the top down, but wanted a bit of detail on the shank, adding a ridge – inspired by pinstripes so popular in business suits!

The profile was inspired in part by Maleficent. Yes, Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. The small detail on the center stone’s basket emulates her staff, while the shape of the center stone’s basket echos the curve of her jawline, and the lines of the metal holding the half moons mirror Maleficent’s robes.

The cool colors are so perfect for winter, and I cannot wait for her to see it in person!

Lots of things in the works over here.

I’m planning on adding a page with a portfolio for work that may not make it to the website via the blog or some other means. Some of my items are on Pinterest, but not in a consolidated area.

I am considering adding some jewelry items to my etsy shop. I have gradually been letting the listings expire, but will soon be addressing those.

Custom projects are always in the works and I currently have a few exciting ones in the pipeline.

I’m also reconsidering the setting I had planned as a solitaire, the Dignité. I may take it into a different direction than I had been previously, I will have to put some thought into it.

Lastly, everyone keeps asking me if I’m going to be in Tucson this year – I will not be in attendance, but will have a representative there acting as my eyes and ears. Perhaps 2017 will be my year!

Original Find Mahenge Spinel

Posted on December 21, 2015December 19, 2015 by grayspinel

I mentioned in last week’s blog post that I had wanted to post an evaluation of this stone in it’s place, and had to scramble to post something else instead. Which ended up being great because it kind of leads into this post, because it also has to do with the gemstone personal shopping that being in this business entails.

Again, a huge thank you to Mayer & Watt for their ever gracious nature and massive amount of patience. Which was very much appreciated, since the package got delayed for three extra days and we were all a bit freaked out. To say the least.

I don’t want to talk much in this blog, because the pictures really are the ones that need to do the talking, and I can’t say anything more than they can.

Brief background: This is an “original find” Mahenge spinel. That means that it was mined in about 2007, before the appeal of such a stone was really widespread and it’s broadly thought that the best stones were mined at the very beginning of the find. This particular stone had been on a long term memo, roughly two years. Which means that it sat for sale for 2 years without anyone buying it. Well, as soon as it came back to Mayer & Watt, Geoffrey messaged me excitedly with a “Would any of your clients be interested in this?”

Uh, YEAH they would! It’s a 3.62ct spinel that measures 10.2×7.8. It has eye visible inclusions, but what really pops out at you is the color, and retail pricing for a clean stone that is this color and size would get up to the lower-mid 5 figures.

Let me stop right here and say that if you’re not already, you should be looking at these images on an Apple device, iPad or iPhone because the colors are accurate for those pieces of technology, not really on the average laptop (trust me on this! I’m writing this blog on a laptop with factory settings and the color is not accurate at all!).

Now, as you look at these pictures, please note that I am located in the Pacific Northwest and I have not seen the sun for over a week (fog, snow, and rain however…) so none of these pictures are taken in the sun, and I’m rather disappointed I won’t be able to see it in the sun!

Now that I got that out of my system, here it is with an another “original find” Mahenge (and a small Burmese) that you may recognize:

Finally, an another “original find” Mahenge spinel, from my personal collection, which has a very nice pink color, and is very well saturated:

Looking decidedly desaturated next to this big oval.

Realistically, this is the best color Mahenge spinel I have had the pleasure of playing with, and that includes hundreds of carats of them from when I was at JCK Las Vegas this past spring. It’s just that good!

I hope that this post finds you having a wonderful holiday season, and a very merry Christmas week!